Peter is Catholic, alright? He’s got the alter-boy shame, the school boy guilt covered. He’s got the quiet Hail Marys, and the catechisms whispered behind a screen.
What he doesn’t have? The… the fervor that goes along with it. Shameless, insane, soul-devouring faith.
But he does have this, Murder Spree Pink lipstick and peep-toe Mary Janes in shimmery gunmetal.
“Aubergine?” Bucky asks. He’s wearing his Winter Soldier uniform carefully smearing his eyes in black.
“Too much?” Peter asks, suddenly terrified.
Bucky rolls his eyes. “Don’t be dumb. I just think it clashes with the lipstick.”
Peter frowns. The lipstick is very pink, bright. “Which should I change?”
Bucky smiles and rummages through Peter’s collection. He pulls out a dark stick, Winter’s Coffin, and hand it over.
Peter tries not to roll his eyes. “Of course,” he says. But he obligingly kisses Bucky’s cheek before he heads out to… something, at one of Tony’s galas.
“Intimidate and secure,” Bucky sighs. “But I could’ve stayed if you wanted.”
Peter smiles, “I’ll be okay.”
-
“They’re everywhere,” Bucky growls.
WINTER SOLDIER STEPS OUT ON SPIDER-MAN.
Peter shrugs, “I’m sorry. I sort of expected you to wipe it off?”
Bucky growls again, stalking around their tiny apartment, picking up knives and replacing them. “Doesn’t it bother you?”
Peter blinks, lashes painted dark and curled up. “I mean, only because people assume Spider-Man is some kind of wuss who can’t defend himself? But like, thats them, not us?”
Bucky pauses, and he turns to Peter with his arms crossed. “Maybe for you, but James Barnes is known as Winter Soldier. I don’t exactly have the same closeted luxury as you do, Parker.”
Peter swirls around, blush on half his cheek, and glares. “James Buchanan Barnes. You did not just throw that at me.”
Bucky shrugs. “Look, you know I support you, and your reasons to hide it, but c’mon, Parker. I’m the face of this, this supposed ‘affair’ and that’s a lot of negative attention on my already tarnished character.”
Peter looks at Bucky with a carefully blank stare. “I think maybe you should go to Steve’s before we meet up with the others. Catch a ride with him.”
“C’mon Pete,” Bucky says. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Sure you did,” Peter says. He turns around and picks up an eyeshadow palette. Bucky sees the trembling of his hands, and it’s only his frustration that leads him out the door.
-
“Just saying,” Tony says. His grin is feral and his tone sharp, “You could’ve warned us you and boy wonder had broken up.”
“Tony,” Steve says with warning in his voice.
“Yeah, Stark,” Clint adds around a mouthful of shawarma. “Can it so we can get the full story.”
The only one so far staying silent is Natalia.
But she’s giving him a look Bucky knows is full of carefully reserved judgement. She’s just waiting to decide how to land it.
“I’d love to feed the cannon fodder, but it’s actually not my story to tell,” Bucky says with a casualness he doesn’t feel.
He gets a lot of eyes for that one, but he resolutely stuffs his face and says nothing.
“Anyway,” Sam interrupts. “Where is your younger half?”
Bucky wants to know that, also. “Not sure,” he answers instead.
-
“Not that I don’t love having you here,” Steve says.
“But why the fuck are you still here,” Sam finishes.
Bucky sticks his spoon back in his tub of butter pecan gelato. “Peter hasn’t said I can come back.”
Steve and Sam share looks Bucky feels gross witnessing. “You can trust us with the truth,” Steve throws out.
Sam opens his mouth, then shuts it at Steve’s glare.
“I didn’t cheat on Peter,” Bucky grits out.
“Okay,” Sam throws his hands up, and they drop it.
But Bucky still feels their concerned eyes, and he forces himself out of the whole he’s made into the couch. “Ima go for a walk.”
-
He’s hungry. Bucky has been walking around since he left Steve and Sam’s, and honestly, he didn’t get to finish his pint.
Also, he’s lonely and he misses Peter. It’s been two and a half days, and he’s over it.
So he goes to the place he knows Peter will be at 2 p.m. on a Thursday.
Steeped Bites is a little too hipster for his taste, with it’s dainty china and small bites, but they’ve got the best lavender lattes and egg salad sandwiches that are to die for.
It also has May and Peter Parker on a standing weekly reservation.
Bucky smiles his most charming at the hostess and hopes his dingy sweater and borrowed loafers look hip enough for her to wave him in.
“They’re at table 13,” she grins.
Bucky gives her a tight smile, then weaves his way through the too small pathways. “May, beautiful as ever,” Bucky grins. He kisses her cheek, “New dress?”
“You say that every time,” she laughs.
Peter gives him a tight smile.
“Yours new, Parker?” Bucky asks.
“Yes,” Peter answers. He stands up to let Bucky past him, and Bucky reaches out to touch the soft cotton sundress. It’s some kinda pale color, cream or something, with delicate red webbing and, “Are those spiders?”
“May made this,” Peter admits sheepishly, cheeks warming under the bright highlight.
“Stitched every spider myself,” May grumbles. “Took weeks.”
“Turned out swell,” Bucky admits. And it did, hugging Peter’s waist and shoulders all right.
“So,” May sighs as soon as Bucky’s settled. A latte appears in front of him almost suspiciously quickly, and then May demands, “Are we going to talk about the fact that you’re apparently cheating on my nephew with some floozy who wears the exact same custom shade of lipstick?”
Peter and Bucky both blink at her, surprised and yet not by the obvious way she confronts them.
Bucky tells her exactly what he told the avengers. “Not my secret to share, May. If the public wants to make assumptions, that's on them.”
May studies them both carefully. “And yet you’ve been fighting.”
“Well, ‘cause Bucky wants to force me out,” Peter sulks.
“That’s now how I meant it,” Bucky sighs. “I just, I understand, okay. I get why you don’t put this out for everyone. But I think maybe you sometimes forget that it’s become my secret as much as yours?”
Peter glares at him, really, truly stares with deep and seething hatred. “Really? That’s really what you think?”
May clears her throat and picks up a few passion-guava macarons. “I’ll leave you to it. Peter, be gentle. Bucky, don't stab anything. I like this place.”
“I’m sorry,” Bucky says immediately. “I know it’s different.”
“People won’t understand,” Peter sniffles. “They’ll think I’m like, confused or something. Or that I think I’m a girl.”
“Maybe,” Bucky concedes. “But do you care what everyone thinks? Or just your friends and family?”
Peter sniffs again, tears rolling through his carefully applied make up. “What if they don’t get it?”
Bucky shrugs. “Listen, some of them won’t. That’s kind of why you’ve kept it close to your chest for so long. But thing is, Peter, if you never give them a chance, how will they ever learn to understand?”
Peter lets out a full sob this time, and Bucky carefully wipes the tears from his cheek. “Either way, good or tragic outcome, you know I’m by your side, right? You know I’m staying right here, with you?”
Peter nods, and Bucky kisses him right on his rouge painted cheek.
“C’mon, Pete. Let’s go talk to the rest of our family.”
-
“So,” Steve says, chewing his words thoughtfully.
And here’s the thing, Peter’s prayed a lot about this. Bloodied his knees begging for an explanation, a cleansing. A gosh-dang redemption in the form of normal. But, “No, Steve, I don’t think I’m a girl. Or, I don’t identify as a girl.”
“But you don’t feel like a dude, either,” Clint interjects.
It surprises him, surprises Bucky, that Clint gets it best. “Something like that?” Peter tries. “It’s more that, clothing, make-up, it doesn’t define me. It’s just one more aspect to who I am, another outfit I put on.”
“So Wunder-Ice here didn’t cheat on you,” Tony sighs. And there’s just a touch of dramatic disappointment, but he smiles at them. “That’s good. Because I’d really hate to have to bury him back in the arctic.
“Just,” Peter begins. He kicks his heels against the carpet, watching the glitter dance under the light.
“Hey,” Natasha says, one hand on his knee.
“It’s just like your super-ego,” Sam adds. “You don’t want it broadcast to the world?”
“We got you,” Steve finishes. “Even if we might be a little slow to get it all.”
Bucky smiles beside him, hand wrapped tight around Peter’s. “But babe, maybe don’t kiss me when you’ve got lipstick on.”